A terminal requests an access to a radio access network, in order to set up a connection between the terminal and the radio access network. Conditions for the granted access are defined by the radio access network, and are equal for all terminals. For example, in an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a terminal requests a random access procedure from a node of the E-UTRAN radio access network, an eNodeB, which procedure is defined by an exchange of random access preambles and of RRC connection establishment procedure related signaling.
However, individual terminals or different types or classes of terminals can be differentiated between one another by requirements posed by the terminals on the radio access network. Those requirements relate, amongst others, to network resources required during the connection and/or to a duration of the established connection. In general, these terminal requirements can be caused by software or hardware constraints of the terminal.
In one example of a terminal comprising a software constraint, the terminal may run a particular application or service, and may thus send signaling information rarely and during a short time duration via the control plane. Such an application could be a social media update associated with periodic status update transmissions and instant messaging, for example Facebook. Accordingly, the terminal may require a short connection duration and thus a short time when being in its connected state. Further, a terminal may run a different application such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and may thus request a setup of a connection for a data transmission comprising a limited radio bandwidth. A hardware constraint of the terminal can, for example, be limited energy resources of the terminal, thereby requiring the terminal to preferably switch into its idle state for energy saving purposes.
In all cases, the network may not be aware of the specific requirement of the terminal posed on the connection to be established until the network may have granted the terminal access to the radio access network. Therefore only a limited number of terminals may be simultaneously served by the radio access network and/or a management of a quality of service by the radio access network associated with a connection between a terminal and the radio access network may be poor.